Friday, 5 September 2008

All about me

Stevyn Colgan has tagged me to tell a little about myself. Here goes...

1. Although I am right-handed, I can write equally well, if not better, with my left hand. After some considerable time performing a job that involved a lot of writing, I contracted what I thought was RSI, and taught myself to write left-handed. I now switch from hand to hand as my mood dictates.

2. I once sold a sink plunger to a member of the cast of Upstairs, Downstairs. Whilst working as a Saturday boy in an ironmongers' shop, I sold aforesaid useful item to Jenny Tomasin (who played the unfortunate maid Ruby in the series) who was having problems with her plumbing.

3. I was highly commended in a "twist" competition. As a small child I was taken to Butlins holiday camp at Clacton. It was the first holiday I ever had and I'm pretty sure it was in 1964, as I can remember Lulu's "shout" on the jukebox. I had to do the twist up on stage in front of parents and the Butlin Redcoats. Curiously, I suffered no embarassment, probably because I was only nine.

4. I worked as a stagehand at a production of Spring's awakening by Frank Wedekind at the Cockpit Theatre in London. The cast and crew were taken from my school and our "sister" school in Hammersmith. A production that would have sunk without trace was unexpectedly very well attended. It could be something to do with the News of the World describing it as a "blue sex show." Which, dear reader, it wasn't.

5. I was once a part time fish mender.

6. I am the co-author of the perpetually unpublished Middenshire Chronicles, an account of the history and eventual demise of the smallest county of England. I'll let you make an inspired guess as to the identity of my fellow co-author.

There. That's me. I've yet to tag anyone else as I am so new to this blogging lark that I haven't acquired any avid readers at this time. My search for suitable virtual chums goes on.

9 comments:

I'd like to welcome you to Blogdom, if I may! I found you via Stevyn's blog.

I'm an American expat, married to an Englishman, who has now been living in Oxfordshire for 5+ years. I began blogging after my husband suggested it as a way to get my observations about life in the UK down on paper. It has become so much more...and has also become an important part of my life.

I just wanted to say hello. Drop by Lord Celery if you dare to do so!

And I'd like to add a link to your blog on mine, if you'd like. I would enjoy reading it regularly.

Please do feel free to add a link to my blog on yours. I shall indeed visit Lord Celery later today, and you are always more than welcome at mine - the kettle is always on and there are plenty of biscuits in the tin!

It's not ignorance on your part...it's just me being obscure! My Dad was the chief taxidermist at the London Natural History Museum. When I was still at school, he got me a holiday job there. The museum has a smaller site at Tring in Hertforshire, that has a large collection of Victorian stuffed fish. My task was to refurbish some of these fish (ie repair fins, fill holes and repaint, etc.) and put them back on display. I think most of them are still there thirty five years on!

So, you're a Beatles fan? Me too. Sergeant Pepper was the first "pop" album I ever bought, and I still have it and a good few other albums. Sadly, however, I no longer have a record player!

One of the dogs in Tring museum is, in fact, my Dad's work. It was a Dobermann that died chasing a cat. The cat ran up the tree, but the dog had a poor braking system, collided with the tree and broke its neck.

Well, Chris, my father was trying to round up a psychic bull to be butchered. He broke away, tore across the pasture, down into the woods, ran head first into a tree, dying instantly. There was no way to move him from where he fell, so he was hung and butchered from a tree, and my father grumbled every time he ate beef that winter.